Cash's Adventures in Diplomacy

Coming to a close

Cash — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:39:56 +0000

So I just finished week 4 of A-100. Just one more week left (my class is the first class to move from 7 to 5 weeks). The weeks have flown by, and it’s just hitting me that this next week is the last time all 94 of us will be in the same place. It’s crazy – it seems like time has flown by, but at the same time I feel so so close to my A-100 classmates. I guess it’s because we’ve been through such an intense and life-changing experience together. Our guests that come to speak to us keep telling us that they never lose touch with their A-100 classmates, that it’s like the friends made after 4 years of college.

Monday is Flag Day, which is what is on my mind 24/7. Flag Day is when we all find out where our first post assignment will be. We all will cram into the Foreign Service Institute gym with friends and family. One at a time, a flag is held up. We all yell out the name of the country (don’t worry, someone in our class made out a cheat sheet so we’re able to identify some of the more obscure flags), and then the name of the person posted there is announced. You go up, take a picture with your flag, and then are handed a packet with your entire schedule from Monday until the time you leave for post. You then find out all the training you’ll receive and when – i.e. functional and tradecraft training, language training, security training, etc etc. You could be leaving for post in as little as 4 weeks, or as much as 1 year, depending on the post and the language. I could be in either of those categories, and the posts I bid “high” on include posts in Asia, Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and DC (Sorry, we’re told not to discuss the specific posts on our bid list). I’d be absolutely thrilled to be going to any of them, but it still shreds my nerves to think that I have no idea where I’ll spend the next two years of my life and how long it will be until I go there.

In the meantime, my mom gets here today! I’m really excited to see her and hang out with her. She’ll be coming to Flag Day and next Friday’s swearing in ceremony (more on that later), and I’m so thrilled to have her here!!

Alright, better go clean up a bit before she gets here…

A New Day at the State Dept.

Cash — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:56:55 +0000

This morning I feel deeply proud of the State Department and Hillary Clinton. Today it was announced that State is moving to extend all benefits to same-sex partners of U.S. Diplomats. There are only a few thousand U.S. diplomats, but this is really a huge issue in the diplomatic community. Beyond issues of justice and fairness, it’s a critical issue because same-sex partners are denied many extremely critical benefits. First among these is the use of medical facilities at overseas posts, which in many third-world posts around the world is obviously a very, very big problem. They are also denied medical and emergency evacuation benefits that heterosexual spouses receive, which is also a huge problem for self-evident reasons. Additionally denied is transportation between posts, training in security and language instruction, health insurance, etc. etc.

It’s a good day for the State Department. I’m proud to serve at what is now the most progressive arm of the U.S. Government.

See more info. here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/us/24benefit.html?hp

http://us.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/24/gay.diplomats.benefits/index.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/23/gay-us-diplomats-to-recei_n_207116.html

I’m back!

Cash — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:54:45 +0000

So sorry it’s been a while since my last post. I had to think about whether to continue the blog or not after a few briefings during my training. I’ve decided that I will continue, but will refrain from being too specific about my training. Many of the briefings are SBU, “Sensitive but Unclassified,” i.e. not for public distribution.

My first two weeks have been absolutely amazing. I’m having the time of my life. Every morning when I wake up I can’t wait to get to training (even though I wake up before 6AM). I’m also making lots of really fantastic friends. My fellow A-100ers are the most amazing group of people I’ve ever met. The training briefings have covered everything under the sun, and my brain hurts from so much information. It’s certainly been intensive. I feel like I’m just coming up for breath on this long weekend.

Over the past several days we’ve all been obsessing over our “bid list,” the list of the 107 or so posts and jobs available for our class (yes, there are more positions that people – some of the positions will go unfilled). I can’t post the list publicly, but I’m bidding high on positions in Asia, Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and some one-year assignments here in DC. My final bid list is due on Tuesday morning, but I think I’m pretty much set. That doesn’t stop me from obsessing, though, and I’m still looking again and again at as much info as I can find on a lot of the posts on my list. I’m incredibly eager to find out where I’m going, but I won’t know for several weeks..

That’s it for now, but I promise I’ll update more often now!

Running

Cash — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:57:52 +0000

So Emily is coming next Thursday for about a week. I can’t wait!! While she’s here, we’re going to run in a 10k race, the Capitol Hill Classic (http://www.capitolhillclassic.com/). Should be a lot of fun – apparently it’s the “only race run entirely through historic Capitol Hill.”

But 10k is a long way, so Emily’s given me a run schedule to get me in shape. It’s great, but phew am I tired. However, the gym has made the long runs immeasurably more tolerable because each treadmill has it’s own LCD TV on it with cable. I spent one day running to episodes of Seinfeld, one watching most of movie, “Three Kings,” and one watching the Sopranos (see picture below. See Tony?)

Running with Tony

Obama and Bagpipes

Cash — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:34:13 +0000

So today was my first day here in DC, and can I just say that I LOVE this city! First up, my wake up alarm turned out to be what I’m pretty sure was Obama’s motorcade passing underneath my balcony. I woke up to the sound of sirens of a bunch of police motorcycles closing off the intersections. They were followed by a bunch of big black SUV’s and police cars, which were followed by two hulking armored-looking limousines, which were then followed by a bunch of other SUV’s and other assorted vehicles, some of which with what seemed like an absurd amount of strange looking antennae on top.

After I woke up I took a walk around to explore and see if I could find a garment steamer for my much-wrinkled suits and dress shirts (turns out being folded up for over a week will do that..who knew?). The weather was nice and cool, and my walk was made even better, in fact WAY better, by the sound of bagpipers! Ohh yeah. If you know me at all, you know that that positively made my day. Later I saw a bunch of police people standing around ready to march somewhere in their dress uniforms with flags and so forth, so I guess the bagpipers were likely there was some kind of police event. I also saw a pretty hilarious scene of a huddled group of cops desperately confused about how to put on their ceremonial shoulder strap-belt thingy. I didn’t see them figure it out.

After getting pretty confused about why Dunkin Donuts and Chipotle were written in Chinese, I realized I was in Chinatown and hopped on the Metro to go to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Target (yes, I’m definitely back in America!). Errands = success. Scenic walk = huge success.

I also figured out how to get my stored stuff (HHE, or Household Effects, in State Department lingo) moved from Providence, Rhode Island, down to the State Department storage facility. My stuff’s being picked up this Friday. As it turns out, State seems to actually be pretty darn efficient.

Alrighty, well off to go steam some clothes and watch some Californication from Itunes!

I’ll leave you with my view of a sweet Church from the living room:

Church Spire

My New Apartment!

Cash — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:32:45 +0000

So after the very long journey from London, I’m finally settled in here in my DC apartment! I can’t tell you how amazing it is to move into a completely furnished place and only have to unpack clothes. Amaaazing. I absolutely love my apartment, and the location is fantastic (1210 Massachusetts Ave NW). The building is great, too. The gym here is really big. There’s even a separate flat screen tv connected to each treadmill, which I thought was pretty cool. Also, they have free DVD rentals and do your dry cleaning for you if you drop it off at the front desk. There’s also a rooftop terrace and an outside grill you can use. And there’s a big, nice lounge area complete with a pool table, piano, etc. Yeah, I could get used to this…

It does feel really nice to be back in the good old US of A for a while. It was raining pretty hard when I got here, so I haven’t had a chance to explore too much around the area. Right now I’m eating dinner from Au Bon Pain, which is right next door. Reminds me of all the au bon pain I ate back at Brown…

Here’s a gallery of some pics I took of my place:

First Post/Bye Bye London

Cash — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:01:44 +0000

UK Houses of Parliament

Well here’s my first post. I’m really just planning on using this blog as a way to keep in touch and write down my experiences as I start my journey in the Foreign Service. It’s also a nice way to make sure I take pictures and keep a kind of journal of what I’m doing. Right now I’m in London for the last day. I turned in my final papers and my dissertation’s bibliography, title, and topic abstract. My (very tentative) title that is way too boring is “Varieties of Crisis Response: A Varieties of Capitalism Analysis of Comparative Responses to Financial Crises.” …snore… It’s actually really fascinating stuff, I promise.

The US Embassy here in London sent movers to my apartment last week to pack my things and ship them for me. It was really fantastic not to have to pack myself. And they were serious professionals – they packed and boxed everything in my apartment in under half an hour. Emily took my UK appliances (nespresso machine, lamps, etc.) to use or sell in Cambridge, so now I’m just sitting in an empty, bare apartment. I’m ready to go. Not too much longer, though – I leave really early tomorrow morning. I move into my apartment tomorrow (which, location-wise, is a little under a mile from both Dupont Circle and the White House), and I start my diplomatic orientation course, the so-called “A-100,” the following monday May 11th. I’m so excited I’m about to burst!!

DC here I come!

US Capitol Building